Historical “Feelings”: Empathy and Situational Interest During a Virtual Reality Historical Empathy Task

Despite the growing interest in using Virtual Reality (VR) for educational purposes, few studies have explored the connection between empathy and situational interest in the context of VR-supported history education. This study explored the relationship between empathy and situational interest in a history learning VR task. We recruited 49 undergraduate and graduate students to watch a 5-min VR movie, Defying the Nazi , from Life VR. Following, participants completed a survey battery capturing their empathy and situational interest. We employed multidimensional scaling to reveal nuanced relationships between the constructs. Overall, we found a strong relationship between empathy and situational interest following the VR historical empathy task, with an emphasis on emotional engagement. Our findings suggest that emotional engagement plays a crucial role in sustaining student interest and supporting learning outcomes in VR history learning environments, highlighting the importance of designing VR experiences that foster empathy and situational interest to enhance the efficacy of history education.